The final grade will be based on the labs, homework, two midterms, and the final exam with the weightings shown below.
While not given a specific weighting here, constructive participation, together with any in-class quizzes, will also effect your final letter grade. It is strongly recommended that you be an active participant in class.
| Labs | 10% |
| Homework Assignments | 10% |
| First Examination | 20% |
| Second Examination | 20% |
| Final Exam | 40% |
Warning: If you do not plan to do substantially all of the homework assignments, then do not plan to pass. The only way to learn to program is to write programs. The homework assignments (and the labs) are designed to help you improve this skill.
To acheive an A-, you will need to earn an overall grade of 90. For a B-, you need an 80, etc.
First, note, the university has a general code of conduct policy that covers plagiarism, cheating, etc..
In addition, the Computer Science department has a policy on collaboration in programming courses. Cheating on exams, homework assignments and quizzes will not be tolerated and will be dealt with severely. If you cheat, you face a potential grade of F for this course and possible expulsion from the school. This policy is strictly enforced.
You are encouraged to discuss the homework with others in the course; however, what you hand in MUST be your own work. So, for example, feel free to discuss what needs to be done on a particular programming assignment with a fellow student, but DO NOT write the program together or copy any portion of their code. You should help each other to debug code and correct errors, but DO NOT SIMPLY replace your incorrect statements with the correct statements from another person's code.
We use a program that can take the submitted code from all students in the course, compare every line of every program for exact copies or for "logical" copies, and print out and display all instances of similar code. From this information it is easy to determine if anyone has broken the rules on collaboration.
Exams are closed book, no notes and no calculator. Exams are not curved. About half the exam is based on writing code and the rest on short answer questions that analyse code.
Homework has a due date and an "accepted until" date. Homework submitted after the due date will be penalized by 5% for one day, 10% for two days, 20% for three days, 40% for four days and 80% for five days. After that it receives a zero.
Your lab grade counts for 10% of the course grade; it can mean the difference between getting an A or B, or between passing and failing.
Labs are to be done during the lab. If you cannot complete the lab in that time, you are permitted to complete it by the end of the weekend. Note that NYU Classes will show the "due date" as Friday night. This is to encourage you to get it done promptly, ideally in lab. It does not, however, imply any penalty if you do happen to need the weekend to finish up.
Hopefully, your lab will be checked off during the lab by one of the lab instructors. In that case, you will receive full credit for the lab. However, you still must submit the lab on NYU Classes.
Submitting a lab without attending will not earn any points unless you have made prior arrangements with you lecture instructor.
Maintained by John Sterling (john.sterling@nyu.edu). Last updated February 11, 2020